Walking beats working

Shirley arrived from NZ and we headed off to Hadrian's wall.   photo link
 We went to Carlyle on the train a very scenic trip on the Settle Carlisle line, all little villages and pretty railway stations.

Arrived and dropped our bags at our B & B and headed to town. After a coffee and cake we visited the Carlyle castle and the local museum.

There was a good exhibit on Georgian Carlyle with some original clothes, there was a phase when dresses were worn very wide, must have been a nightmare in doorways.


We bought some food for our lunches, had a nice Greek meal and then settled in to sleep.

Sadly it was raining when we set off, I tried my walking shoes but they got soaked so went back and changed into my proper boots.
Off we went, easy paths getting out of town  

our first night on the track

and into the countryside. The rain stopped early on and it was quite pleasant. We did 15 miles on day one and were dragging a bit at the end ( well it took 7 hours including both a morning coffee and lunch stops). Finally reached Lanercost a glance at the priory as we passed then we made it to our accommodation.
Our B & B was down off the track and was a very old farm house on the banks of a river swollen and in flood. We had a 300 year old bridge to cross to get to it. The owner cooked us dinner along with 4 others as it was a long way to any pubs.  A nice room and a good sleep.


Day 3: Next morning breakfast with the other guests and a chat about each persons plans for the day, mostly walking but a couple of cyclists.
After a lovely breakfast and collecting our packed lunches ( mine were cheese and chutney the whole way) we headed off back up to the track and walked for 10 miles ( in 5.30 hours)  a stop for lunch.
Mostly easy walking with a lot more wall including turrets and mile castles along the way. Went to Birdoswald  an english heritage property ( picture of what it looked like in 122 AD) now ruins and a nice museum.

Then when we had reached our destination for the day the owner of the Farm stay came and collected us in her car. The farm stay was part of a national trust estate and very nice. We had sunshine so did some washing and hung it out and sat and patted the farm cat. A nice barn conversion to sleep in and a walk in shower room made this a nice place to stay. We got a ride into Holmhead ( the centre of England geographically ) for a pub dinner and walked back.
 Breakfast included fresh pikelets and all manner of hot and cold options, then the owner then drove us to the start of our walk for the day, P had rung to say that there was a severe weather warning in place so we thought of calling it off but in the end decided to try for a shorter walk and had the owner drop us about 3 miles further on than we planned to start.

Glad we did the weather was grey but not cold and it rained a little but not a lot. Huge black clouds threatened but went around us. So we only walked 3.5 miles but it was a bit up and down as we had arrived at the centre and craggy part of the wall.

Stayed at the Twice Brewed Inn in a place called Once Brewed and P drove from Leeds after work to join us.

more tomorrow.